


First Knight

by Lykegenia



Series: Rosslyn Cousland [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alistair Smut, Blushing Alistair (Dragon Age), Demisexuality, F/M, First Time, Fluff, Loss of Virginity, Shameless Smut, alistair appreciation week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2017-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-30 10:25:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12651726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lykegenia/pseuds/Lykegenia
Summary: "I've never done this before, but I want it to be with you."





	First Knight

**Author's Note:**

> Have some shameless smut to kick off Alistair Appreciation Week ;)
> 
> Written with my Cousland in mind, but I've tried to keep things mostly non-specific

She’s in her room, pacing. Bhelen’s banquet sitting uneasy in her stomach, though she barely touched it. They’re to go into the Deep Roads tomorrow. The stuff of nightmares. Literal nightmares. They’ve prepared as best they can, taking only those who will be unaffected by the darkspawn taint – and Wynne, who insisted they need a healer and will not be left behind. Only now it’s late and with everything done there’s no excuse for her not to sleep.

The room feels empty – huge, despite the low ceiling and the dim glow in the walls. The bed waits, low to the ground and carved of rock, filled with a mattress of expensive feathers from the surface, luxuriant but cold to the touch, like everything here.

She should go and see him, she wants to be held. The walls are crowding in. But he’ll probably be resting, he needs his rest. The dog sleeps in his own antechamber, guarding their supplies. She can cope until morning, in the big bed all alone with thick stone walls, cut off from the companions she’s grown so used to hearing through the thin membrane of her tent.

No. She needs him. She opens the door to fly from her room and just then he raises his hand to knock. Both stand blank in surprise in her doorway until she says his name and he clears his throat to stop the blush creeping up his neck.

_I thought you might be asleep, but I wanted to… err, can I come in?_

_Of course._

She steps aside to let him pass, noting he’s without armour, as she is, reduced to shirt and breeches that highlight the form of the shoulders, the taut back, the lean, long legs. He pauses to look around, whether to compare to his own rooms or to distract himself she isn’t sure, but there’s an air about him that makes the atmosphere between them thick and uneasy as syrup.

_Hey, do you have one of those water-closets too? Mine’s got this chute that sort of showers you with hot water when you press a button, and there’s a cog thing that changes the temperature. Sorry, I’m rambling again, aren’t I? ‘Oh Alistair, how you do go on.’_

_If your rambling bothered me I wouldn’t have let you in. I’m glad you’re here, actually. I… was about to come and see you. Is something wrong?_

She drifts closer, but there’s still something he holds inside himself, that makes his skin uncomfortable, though it’s hard to notice that with his eyes burning hot as the magma that runs as the lifeblood through this great city. A cough works its way from his chest, all nerves and squeaking aspirations, and colour rises like spring on his cheeks.

_I, uh, I came to talk to you, to ask you – that is… I guess I really don’t know how to ask you this._

_Ask what?_

Standing close now, breath mingling in the space between their feet. Watching as his eyes jump around the room, settle on the bed, on her, on the ceiling and back again in quick succession. His hands never still, though she thinks they might if he were to put them around her waist.

_How do I say this? You’d think it would be easier but every time I’m around you I feel as if my head’s about to explode – I can’t think straight._

_And yet you came to see me?_

The reminder and the trace of humour on her lips seems to steady him. She wants to touch but senses she cannot yet, she must wait for what he has to say. With the stone all around them it’s too easy to think of the dark tunnels that await them on the morrow, in too short a time. He sighs, voice cracks.

 _Here’s the thing… Being around you makes me_ crazy _. And I can’t imagine being without you, not ever. I don’t know how to say this another way, but… I want to spend the night with you. Maybe this is too fast, I don’t know, but I know what I feel. I wanted to wait for the perfect time, the perfect place, but when will it be perfect? If things were, we wouldn’t even have met. We sort of stumbled into each other, and despite this being the_ least _perfect time, I still found myself falling for you, in between all the fighting and… everything else._

_And we might die tomorrow._

Until this point they’ve shared kisses, histories, jokes. Her dreams have toyed with more, and the subject of sex, though stilted, made its way onto tongues suitably loosened with berry wine in the Dalish camp. At first, she feared the coming of the moment he would ask her for more than the kisses she so enjoys, the looming choice between keeping _him_ and keeping _herself_. She feared there would be no more kisses after that. She is not of normal persuasion, after all, never had her head turned by anyone, nor her attention kept more than the minutes it took to get bored. He knows she is inexperienced, but not that it’s because until so recently she lacked the inclination to follow anyone to bed. And now there he stands, close enough to smell the sweetness of his breath, and her pulse heaves with the thought of being closer still.

 _It’s not because of that! At least, not entirely… I’ve never done this before – you know that. I want it to be with you, while we have the chance. But even if all this wasn’t happening, I can’t imagine_ not _wanting you, or… wanting to be with you – like that._

_How in all the world… I never thought to meet someone like you._

The heart beneath her hand booms like the oncoming rumble of an avalanche. She leans closer, into the warmth and the musk of him that breathes both comfort and resolve into the very marrow of her bones. In his eyes, hope and fear and heat and something she knows yet cannot name.

_Someone like me?_

_I’ve never felt anything like this. I never thought about – about intimacy, except to know I never wanted it and wondered why everyone else held it in such high regard. It was a nuisance, at best. And then in all this darkness I find you, and I find myself so wrapped up in thoughts of you I don’t know where to turn, how to even_ breathe _sometimes… If you were anyone else, I would say no. But then… it is_ you _asking, and you’re the only one I’ve ever thought of as… as a lover._

Their hands are twined. She leads him backwards with a blush, glancing towards the bed – cold, but holding the promise of warmth between its sheets – heart high in her throat, anticipation sparking through her thighs and swooping in her belly. Following, eyes roving like a strategist, his mouth opens to check this isn’t all a dream.

_Yes?_

_Yes._

Reverent, how his hands and lips begin gently. She was right. Fingers slide around her waist and lose their tremor, seeking instead for the shell-smooth curve of her hip beneath her shirt. Though the taste of him is in her mouth, his warmth against her palms, her attention can only funnel to the gasping press of his fingertips, working, searching, lifting the linen fabric to mould his hands against her skin. How can your attention be everywhere, she thinks, when everywhere is burning? His second hand works out the trick, joins the first, and together they find the miracle of her spine. He explores upwards with a scrape of blunt nails that jerks her forward, quite involuntarily, and now there’s a grin against her lips. Down again. Shudder, a little parted whimper from her throat. Every stroke, and the shirt peels up with his movement, a chrysalis unfolding, revealing ribs, muscle, skin no adult man has ever seen before.

Stray thoughts curdle in the back of her mind – what if, what if – but she doesn’t want the tension corkscrewing in her chest, so she pushes the errant words away and distracts herself kissing along his jaw and down the angles of his neck. He cannot have everything his own way, after all, and she has thought of this – how she has delighted in imagining the pinpricks his stubble would scratch across her tongue. His throat bobs under her ministrations, a fascinating undulation. Draughts crawl in about her shoulders, where the shirt has paused, where Alistair stands all but petrified as she invites her teeth to follow the play of her lips along his pulse.

He groans, and she grins. Have his eyes stuttered shut?

Belatedly, it occurs his buttons should be undone, his chest made bare as his neck, but a rude flash of fabric interrupts her fumbling and her shirt is drawn off, discarded. Hot hands settle on her waist again, thumbs stroking over the sensitive flesh just above her hips. His eyes are hotter still when they match hers.

_You are… Maker’s breath, there’s not a word for what you are. Are you still sure?_

_I like it – those little circles you’re making. Don’t stop._

Given leave to explore, he does, slowly, measuring, enraptured by the little frown of pleasure drawn to her brows by such simple touch. For a moment she forgets she’s meant to be undoing buttons, wants only to take his lips again, and does. More confidence this time when he presses forward, tongue into her mouth with deep vibrato sighs, palms ghosting upwards over spine, shoulders, neck, down along the straps of her band for an experimental caress of both her breasts at once. Something inside her clenches. She whines.

_I didn’t hurt you, did I?_

_Definitely not. Do it again?_

Grinning, he complies, but as her body ticks and twitches under its own leave her frustration swells. The foreign warmth of him is under her hands, impossibly far away with the cotton of his shirt still between them, and when it’s his turn to take her neck, to make her hum with the feel of his teeth and drag her fingers into his hair, a hard prod nudges at her belly and she knows it for what it is.

The bed is behind her. The stone shelf hits her calves, rough but not cold like she expected, and she is faced with a split second decision, like which way to dodge on the battlefield – let herself fall, or attempt the buttons again, with fingers that tremble like autumn’s last leaves. Before she can choose, his weight bears down and they float to the feather mattress, encompassed in each other, locked lips and tongues, she reaching up around his shoulders and also out behind her to steady them both against the soft give of the sheets.

The world ignites for a single instant as his weight falls just so against her hips, a long, slow press along her centre that sends a shiver along her spine. To the void with the buttons. Her nails catch on stray threads and on the landscape of his ribs so he shudders, forehead dipped to her shoulder, hair tickled along her jaw, until she reaches the hem to lift it. There’s a coarse edge of hair at his navel, but the rest is smooth skin, toned muscle under the quest of her fingertips. He pushes back out of her reach, onto his heels with her knees already hooked either side of his hips, and yanks the shirt the rest of the way off his body. Eager to be rid of it. It gets stuck on his chin, tangled in his arms, and, giggling, staring at the mechanisms of his torso flexing under the skin – he’s golden all over, in places the sun has never seen – she props herself up to help. It’s worth it just to see the red creep across his face when it finally emerges from the rumpled edges of his collar.

_I didn’t mean for that to happen._

_Don’t worry, I found it endearing._

A kiss to show she means it. A second, longer, lingering like his hands on her thighs. The shirt lies forgotten by the side of the bed. Gathered up, kissed, laid down with the soft mattress at her back, she clings to him, brings him with her, and hisses at the slide of – at last – his skin on her skin all the way to the waist of their breeches. Hisses again when lips paint suckling kisses along her jaw. Down across her collarbone where he sighs and leans into her scent.

_I didn’t realise how good this would feel. I mean, I hoped, of course, and I knew what everyone else told me about it, but they always left out that…_

_It doesn’t feel like sin._

Slow again, hands roving. Embers at the heart of the flames as he curls once more into her mouth, whimpers from her that she gave up trying to control somewhere when her shirt was around her ears. His sides leap under the trail of her fingers, his arms hard as corded steel under skin smooth as a tumbled pebble where he holds himself poised just above her – enough but no more than to feel his weight, the flex of muscle, the friction of his naked chest against her still-bound breasts. Fingers wind into her hair. He shifts higher, rubs against her though his mind is still tangled on her mouth. The richness of the sound she lets loose surprises him. He leans back. She can feel him watching this time as he steadies a hand on her hip and does it again, deliberately, and grins when her head rolls back, her neck arches up along the path of the moan from her throat, and her legs fall apart to lead him on again. A third time, and his face scrunches, mouth falls open on a groan.

_Maker – ah –_

_Come here…_

Tongues meet once more, cool-tasting and slick, hands in his hair hold him close, nails on the back of his neck because she likes the purr when she does it, how his hips jerk against her. So quickly, her focus is narrowing to that vibrant point of contact between them, urging for more, so bright that for an instant she can only turn her mind away to wonder why it’s taken them so long to get here. His hands are everywhere. The guttural sounds he makes with his rutting make her dizzy.

And then he stops.

Her brows come together, eyes tight shut, and she clings tighter, imprecations on her lips until she realises the source of the problem. And she sniggers, lets the convulsions take her into proper laughter.

_You could give me a hand with this, you know, instead of lying there chortling like a jackal._

_Oh but it’s too funny! Get off – I’ll show you._

One of his hands dawdles on her waist as she rolls him away and sits up, cross-legged for balance. Hair falls in a tickling curtain to her waist, getting in the way, but as she reaches around to undo the knot holding her bindings together, a broad, calloused palm acts on the thought to brush it over one shoulder. He tucks himself behind her, the heat of him radiating against her back. Lips follow, sucking on the ridgeline of her shoulder as the material loosens around her breasts.

_Let me – actually, I have an idea. Come here._

_What are you…?_

Suddenly bereft, she turns, finds Alistair shunting backwards until he’s against the pillows piled high at the top of the bed. When he pats the empty mattress between his legs, biting his lips in shy invitation, her lips answer with a smirk. The shuffle forward is a lot less elegant than she imagined, but there’s some satisfaction to be gained from the sight of his torso, peppered with freckles, and brushed with hints of dark hair that scatter over lean abdominals and coalesce into a brief, dark line below his navel. Even more, the way his still-clothed legs twitch as she advances and runs her knuckles from ankle to knee, knee to hip. His hands reach for her to pull her properly into his lap, catching her in the pleasant trap with the new heat of his erection at the base of her spine.

_How’s this?_

_Comfortable, but what am I supposed to do while you… do whatever it is you so clearly have planned?_

So close, the rich hum of his laugh echoes up her spine. He takes his time to answer, smile against her neck, clearing her sweep of dark curls over her shoulder with the barest ghost of fingertips, sending her palms to brace against his thighs. It’s hardly her own will that has her bare her neck further, offering veins and nerves and tendons for his enjoyment, but _oh_ , she doesn’t mind in the least. Her thighs squeeze together, seeking an edge not to be found. He notices – the movement nudges backwards, trembling against his trapped cock – and a breathless groan drops from his lips, lightning through the scalding centre of her body.

_You, ah, could relax, and let me touch you. If… if I go too far, tell me, and I’ll stop._

_I don’t think I’ll ever want this to stop. But I will, if it gets too much – if you promise the same._

The compact seals with a kiss, rolling tongues and lips and a small clack of teeth. A distraction. Clever fingers find their way to her ribs, kneading slow, investigative circles higher, sneaking boldly up beneath the loosened breast band until he once more has room to squeeze the swelling flesh and make her squirm.

_Good?_

_Ah – yess…_

The band disappears. The supporting straps glide from her shoulders and she loses track of where it goes, but all that matters now is that nothing interrupts his attentions, the press of his mouth at her pulse and the way his breath gasps over her skin. Hair like cool silk beneath one of her hands, hot flesh under the other, though she can no longer tell which is which. The pleasure comes sharper as he plays with her, banking the fire kindled with the first spark of his touch. Absently, her brain processes the sight of his fingertips prodding and pinching her nipples between them, the dig of blunt nails that will leave red marks in the morning, but knowing is distracted from _feeling_ , and with a mewl her eyes squeeze shut and she has to clamp her lip between her teeth.

But still no relief for the shiver between her legs. Her hand drifts from its brace against his thigh towards her own.

_Maker’s breath, that – that wasn’t something I thought…_

_Didn’t… tell you… to stop._

Entirely lost to propriety, she bucks into her own hand now, grinding sweet pressure through breeches and smalls while her lover watches on, transfixed, breath held, heart pounding at her back. Triumph shines through the mist of her pleasure to hear him swallow. A tongue licks the shell of her ear.

_My lady is demanding tonight. May I?_

_Mmhm. Alistair, yes._

Fingers weave with hers. They learn her rhythm, find a weight that leaves her trembling, then take over. Blood rushes in her ears. Breath comes in cut-off sobs barely heard over murmurs of endearment and disbelief that such small, simple movements can make the whole world turn over.

For an instant the pressure ceases. Her body arches up, demanding, and she turns on her shoulder to offer complaint until her lungs catch in a gasp. Alistair’s fingers, expert little learners, chafe at the ties holding her breeches to her waist.

_Is this alright?_

_Yes. I want you._

Hips buck to punctuate her words. The ties come loose. A hand wriggles under her clothing, probing to the froth of hair beneath, and further.

_Like that?_

_Mmh – Maker’s br– wheredidyoulearnthat?_

Laughter again. The pace he sets with his fingers slows as that fine, regal nose nuzzles the hollow point of her jaw. It’s a secret, clearly, what he knows, but she doesn’t care so long as he doesn’t stop. Instead, there’s the urgent matter of her breeches, too snug around her hips, and his, which still conceal far too much of him, but are out of reach for her lust-shaken fingers. She shimmies out of hers as far as she can, irritated by even the briefest loss of connection. His other hand remains at her breast, rolling the flesh between his fingers. Wet sounds rise from where he strokes her, digits slick, dedicated, learning about her most sensitive places, but it’s not yet enough because the ache goes deeper than that and though he’s found the opening of her cunt his touch stops short every time, uncertain of the welcome. Swallowing past her dry tongue, shaking, she slides her palm over his knuckles, guiding him until he’s poised, given permission to continue, if he wants.

Two fingers plunge inside of her.

That’s all it takes to make her convulse. She yelps, shuddering, every muscle pulled taut with the strain of this new sensation. Somewhere, she realises his fingers are still moving, stretching inside her, the cradle of his thighs the only thing keeping her from falling all the way into nothingness as he works and wrings even more pleasure from her body. When she falls back against his shoulder, panting, exhausted with a film of sweat over her forehead, he stills, but does not withdraw. He licks his lips, breath laboured, skin hot, and presses a kiss against the corner of her eye.

_So that’s what it looks like when you… Maker’s breath. Is it always so…?_

_Heh… I don’t have – much basis for comparison. But I’d, um, like to find out. And what about you?_

Blind, she pecks tiny kisses along the underside of his jaw, turning in the embrace, hampered by the breeches still around her knees and the quaking of her limbs as she smooths her right hand up towards his groin. Only opens her eyes when light fingers close on her wrist.

_I want to, uh… last – for you. As long as I can. It probably won’t be long._

_I wouldn’t mind. Especially after that, what you just did – I want to make you feel that good._

Wrapped around each other, there’s barely any space between them. Her breasts, with the nipples raised to rose-tipped points, lie sheer against his chest. The sweat on her back – his and hers, together – cools in the airflow of the room, but it barely registers as he raises her hand, licks kisses to the tips of her fingers. She’s lost in the honey of his eyes.

I _would mind. I want this to be special._

 _I’m with you – it already is. I want to see you – I_ want _you. And for both of those things, you’re wearing far too many clothes, my dear._

Time has stopped. As feeling slinks back into her ponderous limbs there’s only him, the soft caresses of his mouth and calloused hands even softer against her sides. Part of her wants to simply stay and kiss him until all the evil in the world has passed them by and even the very stars have winked out their last light, but already he’s learning how to stoke the fire within her, and he has yet to find the relief he was so generous in giving. And, after all, they might die tomorrow.

She breaks the kiss and moves away, to the centre of the bed. Her breeches and smalls she kicks over her calves without ceremony and hurls amidst the pile of their other things, to be sorted out later. The mattress dips beside her, drawing her attention to where Alistair stands now on shaky legs, pushing the last of his own clothing down over thighs coarsely haired and tightly roped with muscle. She waits. He steps out from the last trouser leg and toes the garment away. The cords in his back ripple under freckled skin when she whispers his name. Standing like that, she can tell he has yet to fully expand into the width of his shoulders, and such knowledge, that she might have the chance to see him grow into his prime, that he might share that with her, makes her smile.

And then he turns around.

One hand flies to ruffle backwards through his hair when he finds her staring. The other, betraying his uncertainty, hovers over his navel, not quite knowing how to preserve his modesty without seeming indecent by touching himself. Heat throbs in the low places of her body, and sweat beads beneath her arms, behind her knees. The gold of his skin has darkened with blushing, and it spreads down the lines of his neck and over his clavicle, hiding his freckles the way a cloud obscures the stars. She has to look away as her gaze descends, too aware of her own position, knelt on the bed with only her hair to cover her body, with nothing but the tremor of anticipation and the cool air between them. Her own face blooms with heat. She’s never seen a man aroused before, and the fact that such vulnerability is for _her_ , because he _wants_ her, means she has to bite her lip to keep her smile from splitting into a ridiculous grin.

_Where – um, how… how do you think we should do this?_

_You mean, positions? I think, maybe… let me go on top?_

His eyes, dark and drinking her in, soften at the corners as he pulls aside the sheets and crawls onto the bed. Rising, she meets him briefly, reaching to link fingers, just as he does, her head tilted in request for a kiss. The way he moulds himself to her, drags his fingertips up the backs of her arms to cradle her chin as he winds his tongue into her mouth, she has to steady herself against his shoulders, very aware of the hard, hot length pressed against her belly. He groans when her hips arch up slowly, so reluctant as he pulls away, but his hands enjoin her to follow.

They fall together to the mattress, the sheets kicked away, the pillows plumped beneath Alistair’s head. He guides her to settle over him, fingers light on her hips and eyes heavy on the sway of her breasts, lips parted just enough to emit a soft, guttural _oh_ when her hair brushes against his stomach. Fearing it might spoil the moment, she’s careful to avoid jabbing her knee into his crotch.

And then, for a moment, overwhelmed, all she can do is close her eyes and ground herself on the beat of his heart in his chest and the feeling of having him beneath her, naked, warm, _aroused_ , the hair on his legs tickling against the soles of her feet. Utter silence. Should she let him have her full weight, or hold it braced on her legs? She’s heavy, her warrior’s muscles thick with conditioning, she doesn’t want him in discomfort. Before she can decide, he shifts, she finds herself tilted backwards as he rises, propped on one hand so he can cup her cheek with the other. His erection tilts against her thigh, holding her whole attention.

_If you’re unsure, we don’t have to do this. I want to, but don’t think you owe me anything. We don’t have to go any further, not tonight._

_I just needed to get my breath back – and… I rather wanted to admire the view._

It’s her turn to touch now. Her palms flat on his chest, he cocks a smirk at her and lets himself be pushed backwards, into the pillows, the adorable blush colouring deeper as she lets go the tension of her modesty and _looks_. There’s no direction to the wandering of her fingers, no purpose. The definition of his abdominals distracts her, and then the scar sitting just below his diaphragm, and then the whorls of hair over his chest and how they catch the light with every deep, controlled breath he takes. The veins in his biceps stand out against the muscle, flexing as calloused fingers idle patterns along her thighs, up across her naval to push aside ebony tresses and reveal her breasts to him once more.

His eyes squeeze shut when her nails catch over one nipple, and when she does it again, enthralled by the reaction, it’s no longer enough to have him just at her fingertips. She angles forward, slides her palms up into his hair, and, flush from neck to pelvis, swallows his moan with her mouth. He rises to the kiss, clever with his tongue, carefree with his voice when she shifts to better prop herself against his chest and winds up rubbing herself along his cock. Strong arms pin her by the waist, tangle in hair drawn like a curtain over them both. She slants her kisses to his jaw, gives another deliberate wriggle, is delighted with the gasped curse that tumbles from his lips, the twitch of his hips to make the sensation last. She’ll have to do something about that.

Humming, kissing him again, she rises on her arms for a better angle. The shameless way she grinds against him now feels like bliss, growing brighter in her belly, almost as good as knowing these movements she makes are the source of the noises resonating on his tongue.

_That feels – Maker – let me – ah. Please._

_Alright._

Anticipation for what she is about to do. She moves slowly down his neck, hips still for the moment, trailing open-mouthed kisses along his skin until her back can bend no more and she’s forced to sit up, pulse unsteady through her ears. Her gaze skips ahead of her hands, down to where his cock lies in its nest of hair, thick and heavy, as yet untouched. Before she can hesitate, or open her mouth to ask, he reaches for her fingers, bringing them to his lips in a brief show of affection before moving them down in a slow glide over his chest. He hesitates when they reached his navel, a question in his eyes. Licking her lips again, she nods, and the answering smile is radiant. In the next instant, she finds her fingers, wrapped in his, close around his length.

The groan pulled from his chest, long and low and edged with a growl, might have made her shy away, except his hand encourages her movements, and his hips twitch into her palm, until every inch of him is slick, coated with a mixture of her wetness and the clear liquid that seeps from his tip. On impulse, she squeezes a little harder and his sighs break into begging. He grips her waist so hard it hurts.

She leans forward and steals one last kiss with a murmur of his name, lining herself up to take him. There’s an awkward moment where she has to shuffle forward on her knees, but his gaze is locked on hers, lost to the inelegance of the movement, and he steadies her. At first she tries to hold his eyes, wanting to extend the moment. It’s too much. The feel of him, thick and hot and held so taut as she envelops him. Her eyes fall and flutter shut.

_Just catching your breath again?_

_Something like that._

It’s strange, not unwelcome but she wants to laugh, wants to savour feeling so full and breathless and energized all at once. And it’s _him_ , holding himself still beneath her, denying every straining muscle to move so that she can get her bearings, bring herself back to her mind and remember what’s supposed to happen next. His nervous chuckle rumbles through her and ends on a hiss because it makes muscles she’s never used contract, in a way that is too delicious for words.

She moves. The rhythm is difficult to find, the mechanisms unfamiliar, but with every rise and fall Alistair sighs, or groans, or _growls_ for her to continue, fingers splayed and digging into her skin. She answers him, voice and body both, hair cast over one shoulder, fingers linked in a grip strong enough to turn her knuckles white. This must be how a flame is aware of itself, as a twist of light and heat existing without form, but though she tries to build the fire the spark she seeks remains elusive. She grasps for it, because beneath her, her lover’s desperation betrays him in little disruptive jerks that unsettle her. He wants to last. His face is screwed in concentration. She needs to kiss him again.

The change in angle as she leans forward grinds against the little nub of nerves at her core. Her pace falters as she whines, one arm thrown out to prop against the pillow by his head, so her forehead doesn’t smack against his chin. She only has one syllable to beg and buries her face in his shoulder as he responds, snaps upwards with a force that makes her snarl. Once, twice, three times and then she loses count in the rush of being filled over and over by the man she loves. _She loves him_.  

He jerks one final time, deep inside her, pinning her in place with a guttural cry until the strength falls from his limbs and he’s left boneless, shaking and sweat-slicked, muttering nothings into her hair. A smile tilts her lips as she finds the ragged thread of his pulse and reads it with her knuckles, drifting in a haze of exertion. She no longer worries whether her weight will be uncomfortable. He doesn’t seem to mind, even draws her closer, in fact, still connected. Dazed fingers trace patterns along her spine.

A chuckle tumbles in his throat, bubbling up into heady giggles as his arms fix more securely about her waist. Just enough energy remains for her to lift her head and frown.

_So that’s what Lyon meant by ‘Warden stamina’._

_Warden…?_

With a snort, she buries her face in his neck again, planting kisses over every inch of skin she can reach as she laughs along with him. A shift of her hips makes him hiss, but there’s no mistaking the sound for one of pleasure.

_No, don’t worry – it’s just a bit… sensitive at the moment._

_It won’t be for long – all the blood is rushing back into your face._

Nevertheless, she sinks to his side, still chuckling, the loss of their parting a grief upon her fogged mind, but other thoughts soon crowd in. There’s a stickiness lingering at her groin, the part that was never mentioned in Oriana’s novels. In the morning, she’ll have to take the bitter tea Leliana gave her, just in case, but for now the small discomfort is worth Alistair’s embrace and the leaden, lovely feeling inhabiting her body.

_I can help with that._

_No, stay._

He turns in her arms to kiss the crown of her head, runs blunt nails down the curve of her waist.

 _My dear sweet lady, I wouldn’t be a gentleman if I left you like this – especially since it’s_ my _fault, and especially since you’ll only be grumpy in the morning._

_Fine, since you’re being so smug about it. But hurry back or I’ll get cold, and then you’ll really see me grumpy._

It’s gratifying to see the wobble in his legs as he walks to the antechamber that contains the privy the dwarven bathing contraption, and the fluffiest towels imported all the way from Nevarra. When he disappears from view, she takes the time to stretch, wallowing in the luxuriant quiver of her legs and arms and back, and fluffs the pillows, straightens the sheets ready for his return.

_You know, according to all the sisters at the monastery, I should have been struck by lightning by now – lightning first, then the end of civilisation as we know it. I am a bad, bad man._

_I don’t think you’re bad at all._

There are more things she wants to say, crowded on her tongue, but when he slips under the covers beside her she kisses him instead to keep them at bay. He grins against her mouth, the rasp of the warm, damp cloth over her thighs gentle with intimate care.

_You do realise the rest of our little party is going to talk, right? They do that._

_Don’t worry, first smart comment and I feed them to the darkspawn._

Sleep is rising to claim her. She snuggles down, transferring her kisses to his neck, and then his shoulder as her eyes drift close and her head becomes too heavy to move. Finished with the cloth, he relaxes with a sigh, sliding his arms around her waist. When he speaks, his voice is scratchy with fatigue.

_Have I told you that I love you? Because I do._

_I love you too._

They might die tomorrow. But until then, there’s the warmth of Alistair’s arms, his breath feathering over her cheek, and the slow, steady pulse of his heart beneath her ear. She holds the feeling close and hopes it will be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Is it warm in here...?


End file.
